Chef Troy Mendoza invented another delicious recipe this week at The Cabin Restaurant. Today’s recipe, two grilled Pork Loins topped with a rosemary-balsamic-butter sauce and served with garlic-spinach mashed potatoes, will be served as a lunch and dinner special this weekend. Mardi Gras is just around the corner and we would normally be serving hot-boiled crawfish while enjoying all the parades in NOLA and Baton Rouge. Unfortunately, the winter has been so harsh down here on the bayou that the crawfish season is about a month behind, so we have to improvise with tasty dishes like the one below instead. L’aissez les bon temps roulez this weekend y’all!

Mardi Gras is a week away! One of the not-so-secret secret Mardi Gras traditions to be found in New Orleans is that of the Mardi Gras Indians. And no one captures the Mardi Gras Indian culture better than Oliphant Images. Dressed in brilliant, extravagant Indian regalia, the Mardi Gras Indians parade through the predominantly African American neighborhoods on Mardi Gras day, putting on an elaborate routine, especially when coming in contact with another tribe.

Mardi Gras Indians are African-American Carnival revelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel. Collectively, their organizations are called “gangs” or “tribes”. There are about 38 tribes. They range in size from a half dozen to several dozen members. Mardi Gras Indians have been parading in New Orleans at least since the mid-19th century, possibly before. African Americans and Native Americans have a long history of mutual cooperation and respect in Louisiana, stemming back to the late 1740s and 1750s, when many African slaves fled to the bayous of Louisiana where they were aided by Native Americans.

Years later, after the Civil War, hundreds of freed slaves joined the U.S. Ninth Cavalry Regiment, also known as Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers fought the Plains Indians on the Western Frontier. After returning to New Orleans, many ex-soldiers joined popular Wild West Shows, most notably Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The show wintered in New Orleans from 1884 to 1885 and was hailed by the Daily Picayune as “the people’s choice”. There was at least one black cowboy on the show, and numerous black cowhands.

On Mardi Gras in 1885, fifty to sixty Plains Indians marched in native dress on the streets of New Orleans. Later that year, the first Mardi Gras Indian gang was formed; the tribe was named “The Creole Wild West” and was most likely composed of members of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. For a good synopsis of the Mardi Gras Indians, please read Judy Weitz’s article. To see Oliphant Images’ entire gallery, click here or visit Oliphant Images FireHouse Gallery and Photo Museum in The Cajun Village.

Chef Troy Mendoza continues to produce innovative recipes here at The Cabin Restaurant. Today’s recipe, a blackened ribeye with a brown butter-garlic sauce and fried oysters, will be served as a lunch and dinner special this weekend. It’s going to be a perfect weekend to grill steaks down here in Louisiana. I hope Spring has sprung wherever you are, too!

After reblogging Suave’s Crevasse for my last post, my mind began to wander toward the modern day levee system that protects our homes, businesses and ways of life along the Mississippi River’s serpentine path to sea and how up until about 75 years ago, most buildings were built on brick piers. You can see many examples of this building type in The Cajun Village and also at The Cabin Restaurant today.

In the past, Louisiana buildings were usually built 2-5 feet off the ground, resting on several brick piers for a few key reasons. The first is obviously flooding – prior the massive levees built after the great 1927 flood, levee heights averaged 4-5 feet in the early to middle nineteenth century and 8-10 feet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These levees generally kept the annual spring floods contained in the Mississippi’s natural course, but occasionally there would be a crevasse or the levees would be overtopped, and water would flow down the gentle grade of the river’s natural levees and back into the swamp, washing under and around the raised structures in it’s path. Having a raised home was essential to actually having a home here in Louisiana, especially out in the country where the levees might not be as protective as those that surrounded the economically essential port of New Orleans.

There was also another reason old Creole and Cajun houses were built up on piers – a house raised on piers allowed air to flow under it and up through the floorboards, helping to push the hot air up through the house and out the roof. This effectively cooling it during the sweltering summer months prior the advent of air conditioning. Natural ventilation and properly placed shade trees were the only means of cooling your house down here in the South until the late 1940s. Some houses did install large box fans in the attic that sucked air up through the floor at a faster rate than a natural breeze prior to air conditioning (my house on River Road has one and it is massive!).

So if you’re wondering why so many old houses are raised on piers in Louisiana, it was because of the ever-present threat of flooding, a lesson that seems to have been forgotten in modern building design in Louisiana today. And when we discard the architectural habits of our ancestors without paying heed to why their buildings were constructed in a specific way, then we are bound to pay a price when a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina hits. Our Louisiana ancestors designed their raised homes along the river and in the swamps to live with the water; we design our homes and buildings today because we have forgotten about it.

Although this focuses on the New Orleans area, it is a great read on the history of flooding, levees, and the Mississippi River in Louisiana in and around New Orleans. Hope y’all enjoy this and have a great Valentine’s Day!

I work in a building that sits right along the Mississippi River. Actually, part of it sits on top of the Mississippi. This means a lot of visitors ask me if we sustained any damage from Hurricane Katrina. The first time I heard this question I was more than a little surprised. But then I remembered just how little information about the actual causes of post-Katrina damage entered the minds of the general American (and foreign) public. So I’ll clear it up here – the Mississippi did not overflow before, during, or post-Katrina. In most areas of the city, being right along the River is the absolute best place to be, as it’s some of the highest ground available. The water level rarely rises high enough to be of any concern to the residents on the Mississippi’s banks. As a matter of fact, while it was a common worry in…